The IOC no longer even mentions its name at press conferences, preferring instead to refer to it as an organization and leaders “ without credibility.But the International Boxing Association (IBA) and its president, the Russian Umar Kremlev, invited themselves to the Paris 2024 Games, Monday August 5. Their presence caused quite a stir.
The occasion: a press conference announced the day before, supposed to present the IBA's version of the controversy surrounding the Algerian boxer, Imane Khelif, and the Taiwanese, Lin Yu-Ting. The place: a long lounge on the top floor of a very Parisian building in the 9th arrondissement, a stone's throw from the grand boulevards and the Grévin Museum. The atmosphere: overheated, in every sense of the word. And sometimes totally surreal.
Let's be clear: the IBA has not really moved the subject forward. And not even at all. Chris Roberts, the executive director, Ioannis Filippatos, the president of the European Boxing Confederation, and Gabriele Martelli, the president of the coaches commission, passed the microphone to each other to “ present the facts », according to the expression of the first of the three men, having led the IBA to exclude the two boxers from the last world championships, last year in India. But they didn't really convince. Above all, they did not provide any evidence that could attest to the relevance and credibility of the femininity tests imposed on the two athletes.
They barely detailed the chronology of the case. Chris Roberts explained that it all started in 2022, at the world championships in Istanbul, where several boxers and coaches asked the IBA to test the two young women. “ The results were inconclusive”, he admitted, before suggesting that the investigation had not been continued, the subject being “ brand new " for instance. The following year, a second series of tests was conducted at the Women's World Championships in India, again at the request of the athletes and their management. This time, the analyzes were more eloquent. Imane Khelif and Lun Yu-Ting were excluded. “ We informed the IOC by mail”, specified Chris Roberts.
Nothing very new, then. Embarrassing. But the hundred media who left the Olympic perimeter at lunchtime did not all regret their foray into a postcard Paris. They experienced a moment full of surprises, very improbable, and very far from the cozy and very structured atmosphere of the daily press conferences of the IOC and the COJO Paris 2024 at the Palais des Congrès.
The timing, first of all. The IBA had invited the media at 13 p.m. At the appointed time, a 00-minute delay was announced. Then another. In question, a technical problem to resolve the remote intervention of the president of AIBA, Umar Kremlev. After an hour of waiting, the Russian finally appeared on the screen. But, bad joke, the sound didn't work. The image without the words.
On the second try, after an interlude provided by Chris Roberts, Umar Kremlev was finally able to express himself. He launched into a long monologue in Russian, where the subject went a little in all directions, but without ever turning around the subject of the day: the controversy over the two female boxers whose looks and punch were considered too masculine by certain rivals.
Umar Kremlev attacked his intervention without an observation round, explaining against a backdrop of religious paintings that he had felt “ humiliated as a Christian by the opening ceremony » of the Paris 2024 Games. Then he continued with his favorite subject, Thomas Bach and the IOC. “ They do not defend sport and athletes, asserted the Russian. For Thomas Bach, this affair is a personal revenge. At the IOC, if you don't agree, they eliminate you. »
Between two attacks against the Olympic body and its president, Umar Kremlev suggested that such a controversy would not have taken place if the IBA had taken care of the boxing tournament of the Paris 2024 Games. Then he moved on another of his favorite subjects: money. “ The IOC does not pay any to athletes at the Olympic Games, it prefers to pay for luxury hotels for its members. But at the IBA, we have money. We are going to distribute some to the medalists, but also to the boxers who have suffered from all this controversy. »
The IBA announced last week its intention to award a bonus of 100.000 dollars to the Italian Angela Carini, at the heart of the controversy for having abandoned after 46 seconds her fight against the Algerian Imane Khelif (photo above). But the president of the Italian Boxing Federation has already made it known that no one within the delegation would accept this money.
